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PROVIDENCE — Dewey Phillips was a real Memphis radio disc jockey in the 1950s who is remembered as key to integrating pop radio in America. He championed music by black musicians at a time when they couldn't drink from the same water fountain as whites. It was in Phillips' story that writer Joe DiPietro found the inspiration for the 2010 best musical Tony Award winner "Memphis" and the show's DJ Huey Calhoun, who has to be one of the quirkier romantic heroes ever created for a Broadway musical.

On the national tour, this week in Providence and moving next week to Boston, the seemingly indefatigable Bryan Fenkart gives Huey an electric yet goofy personality that is wonderfully disarming as he fights Southern prejudice to bring "the music of (his) soul" to wider audiences. Huey may be an illiterate white dreamer who can't hold a job, but Fenkart's offbeat charm is completely believable as his character's dogged passion for rhythm and blues wins over first a roomful of patrons in a black nightclub, then a store full of shoppers, then a city of listeners not used to a manic and irreverent radio host, and finally a beautiful black singing star.

Sealing the deal with audiences is the high voltage that Fenkart and powerhouse Felicia Boswell — playing the mega-talent singer (also named Felicia) he "discovers" — bring to every rousing number in David Bryan's score. They lead an exuberant cast and band in some terrific production numbers and ballads that spotlight an important time in music history along with providing stirring entertainment.

If only it didn't feel like we've seen some of this before.

It's in the second act of the book by DiPietro ("I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change" and Broadway's current "Nice Work If You Can Get It") and some of the lyrics (credited to both him and Bryan, keyboardist for Bon Jovi) that "Memphis" stumbles.

Two years after the events of Act 1, Huey's phenomenally popular radio show has made the leap to local television, and Felicia's huge talent has gotten wider notice. They've tried to keep their romance secret, but are dealing with the fallout of success, continuing prejudice and competing career needs.

Director Christopher Ashley uses cameras to project Huey's colorful antics and his show's infectious on-stage dance numbers onto a giant black-and-white "TV screen" above the stage, and it's an inventive touch. But what we see seems pretty familiar. There are shades of "Hairspray" in the second part of this script, along with a few whiffs of "Dreamgirls" and even "A Star is Born."

In addition, before the final strong numbers — Huey's show-stopping "Memphis Lives in Me" and the raucous "Steal Your Rock 'n' Roll" — some of the Act 2 songs are pretty clichéd. While Julie Johnson wows vocally as Huey's once-prejudiced Mama who reveals her newly enlightened outlook in "Change Don't Come Easy," the song has lyrics like "change don't come quickly, no, not partic'ly." Ouch.

Ashley and his top-notch cast — particularly Fenkart and Boswell — deliver such an entertaining slice of the past, though, that the bumps and simplifications in the story don't matter so much when you're bouncing your way out of the theater. "Memphis" is a fun crowd-pleaser that also offers some historical weight, and these are singers you'd be happy to listen to again and again.